Two shot in Mexico
TWO WOMEN radio journalists were shot dead in southern Mexico in March. Felicitas Martinez and Teresa Bautista were Oaxaca Indian activists who worked for a community radio station called The Voice that Breaks the Silence. Gunmen shot at their car and killed them. Three others travelling with them, including a child, were wounded.
Five journalists have already been killed in the country this year, making it the most dangerous country for journalists in 2008, apart from Iraq. Ten were killed in 2006 and six in 2007.
Attacks on journalists have increased in the face of rising intercommunity conflict between local indigenous groups and the authorities. Community radio stations have been targeted in some attacks.
Five jailed in Jordan
FIVE JORDANIAN journalists have been jailed for three months for defamation and “offending the court” over articles criticising court decisions and a government official.
Taher al Edwan, editor of Arabs Today, Osama al Sharef, former editor of the Constitution, and two other journalists were sentenced for publishing a commentary on a ruling by the High Judicial Council on the nationality law.
Another journalist got three-months for defamation after publishing a web commentary criticising an official.
Jordan recently passed a media law that abolished imprisonment for media offences but there are still provisions under Jordanian laws, particularly in the penal code, which can be used to send journalists to jail.
Journalists on the prestigious French daily Le Monde went on strike for a day in April, in protest at massive job cuts. Managers want to axe 130 jobs, which is two-thirds of the paper’s editorial staff.